Domestic Help, Fashion or need of Families.

The domestic worker is an important part of our culture and such kind of domestic help in the shape of men, women and even eunuchs are found in our old civilization who were available to upper and even middle-income families.. These people known as servant,gate keepers, naukar, malazam or maids perform typical domestic chores such as cooking, ironing, washing, cleaning, grocery shopping, and fully invloved in upbringing the children.Females are specially hired as Ayas(baby sitter) for taking care of young kids even in presence of mothers at home.

In the West, comparatively few households can afford domestic help employees, in lieu of this affordability, the alternative, generally termed as a maid service is utilized during fixed interval of time as cleaner.

Utilizing a servant for household jobs are considered on basis of some of personal factors, i,e

– Status conscious complex, People avoid doing their house jobs by considering it matter of shame.

– Managing big families including kids , old age people , and guests on regular basis.

– Working couples requirement for managing household chores

– Providing extra comfort for house wives in managing routine jobs.

Real Working Setup of Servants in Pakistan:

In Pakistan majority of population due to high rate of illiteracy and less opportunity for regular or specialized jobs work as domestic workers. They hardly have any legal protection from state laws ,nor have any working time statute or any kind of regulations on the maximum number of working hours in a day”. What ever our state laws says, domestic helpers very often, are disregarded and so are their basic civil

liberties and rights as normal working class.

It is very interesting that being Muslims and claim to be followers of Prophet we keep these domestic workers specially those for janitorial jobs are always underpaid and they face odd working hours. Their jobs are not properly defined and most of the families try to utilise them as much as possible without giving them extra incentives.It is also reported many time that physical tortures of young servants along with cases of sexual assaults of maids go unreported despite the approval of Women’s Protection Bill and a recently legislated the Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Bill.

The people hired for domestic help are considered to cover all house hold chores including cleaning and dusting, to cooking, washing and ironing, a servant is a general purpose help, often like a slave.Salary structure is also varied depending upon the age group as adult could receive upto Rs 7000 and a child can be hired on Rs2000 for same kind of job.

Muslim citizens of Pakistan love to feed and cloth their servants by left overs or low rated items for maintaining their superiority complex on naturally weak class of same society where they get better opportunity of living .It is strongly quoted in social circles that if you treat them well or provide them better thing they wont be able to serve people and would leave them for better opportunity.The followers of Prophet love to kill them who would say a single lines against their religion and Prophet but who would punish them who are not following words of last sermon of Prophet.

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly.

“Oh people, be mindful of those who work under you. Feed and clothe them as you feed and clothe yourselves.”

Quran also directly orders us in this regard

“Act kindly just as God treated you kindly” (28:77).

“God has favored some of you over their provisions to those whom their right hand controls so that they become equal (partners) in it. Would they thus disclaim God’s favor” (16:71).

It is estimated that in Pakistan about 70 per cent of domestic servants are females and children ware working as servants in the country. However, with the informal sector taken into account, this figure would be much higher.

As as state protection laws in Pakistan are either negligible or inactive so young boys and girls as domestic employees suffer because of a senseless approach of employees and care less attitude of their parents who are usually interested on monthly income of their large number of siblings.They ignore all kind of domestic violence , might withdraw a case of domestic violence to avoid confrontation with strong people or get money as deal of termination of cases at early stage.

Social /Psychological effects of Creating indifference and maltreatment with Servants:

People who mistreat, overwork and less paid their servants sometime hit by this class in more intense reaction than their thoughts.

Giving them low quality food, offering worst kind of clothing other than one’s status,by neglecting their health issues and ignoring their family problems are some kind of serious blunders which our people do often to these unprivileged class of our society.Because of maltreatment, economic pressure and rapid urbanization, the master-servant relationship has become more tense than our last generation. The in-house crimes cases including kidnapping, robbery, theft and even killing c haven been multiplied each year and in 90% cases domestic servant or his/her aid are play major role . The number of cases where a servant has attacked, and in some cases killed a master or mistress, is rising. so it is simple rule that your all action would produce some reaction If your servant is not happy with your working environment ,he/she either will leave the place or he/she might react more violently than superiority complex thought of rich people.

Conclusion.

So Being a Muslim or some kind of part of civilized society one should maintain good working conditions for servants of the family specially who work indoors.Young males or females should be avoided in those families where teenage boys and girls are enjoying different kind of living standard as it can create serious indifference between two classes of same age group under one roof.In the same manners young daughters and wives should avoid the lone company of male employees in the form of driver, cook etc.This was even highly disregarded from Islamic point of view too.

Kids should be encouraged to help their parents in-house hold job so that dependence of other party can be lessened.

In case of lodging of servants at home, different security cross checks should be made before entering any male servant in the vicinity of house.

One’s kids are the future investment of each couple.The taking care of Young and under ages kids through maids or young males should be avoided on maximum level and one of parent should give up her/his professional priorities at this stage of parenting. Help of grand parents or taking service of day cares are much safer options than leaving alone your child with any kind of domestic help.

Self respect of any servant should be maintained at all levels and other family members should consider this living soul as normal human beings possessing same kind of sentiments as they feel too in normal lives.

On the whole as per modern trend one should maximum avoid this dependency of servants at one’s place as it not only penetrates into private life of any family or couple but at any stage can badly influence family life too .Idle house wives, non cooperative husbands, demanding old people and lazy kids are signs of bad family life which tries to cover up through servant culture.Servant also respond such quality people /class with same manner and result is not as good as people think before taking help like that.

Most of the domestic workers in our part of the world are illiterate and therefore unaware and unsure of their basic rights. Besides the dilemma is all the more intensified when we see that their employers are neglectful or unsure of their obligations towards their domestic workers. The state itself does not protect the personal rights of these workers, thus, the exploitation continues in the form of long labouring hours, meagre pays, and often verbal or physical abuse. Significant measures must be taken on governmental level to improve the situation of this huge chunk of work force in the country.

They are illiterate and unskilled that is why they come and work in our houses for all kind of jobs.Nodoubt they are unaware of their rights when they first enter in this field of domestic jobs but after working in houses they developed their tricky skills to dodge the employees.So it is very difficult for them while living in lavish living style as compare to their lifestyle, to control their negative sentiments against their differences.So they start stealing, extra leaves or low quality work after being expert in domestic jobs.They get to know all tacts of exploitation with the passage of time.
Yes people do behave them brutally but they have full option to leave the houses as this is demand of all middle, upper middle and high class of Pakistan.